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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Writing Negative Reviews

The past year and a half in YA has been tumultuous with reviewers piecing together often fair negative reviews, and writers attacking them for it. From authors actually attacking negative reviews of their books to that generic post about book bloggers from Maggie Stiefvater, the issue keeps popping up. I recently saw something from power blogger Parajunkee that said reviewers are not critique partners so she didn't think it was appropriate to openly criticize in public forums.

I've always handled negative reviews like critiques. I try to point out the author's strengths as well as what really did not work for the book. What do you think is an appropriate way to handle a negative review? I'm not open to the idea of sugar coating or giving a positive review for a book I wouldn't recommend to someone who asked me. So what is a good balance? As an author, I always want to be fair, and I'm not out to hurt careers. Still, I feel for the integrity of my blog, the benefit of my readers, and my own devices (i review to learn) an honest review is necessary.

10 comments:

I think the key to any review (positive or negative) is to keep the focus on what's in the book. Don't make assumptions about the author, their intentions, or anything else that's out in the writing world. So long as your review talks about the content of the book and why is does or doesn't work, you're fine.

I personally have a hard time taking a reviewer serious when all their reviews are glowing recommendations. No one enjoys every book they read.

I feel you have different considerations as an author who also blogs. Personally, if I don't like a book, I may not finish it, and I may not give it a good rating on Goodreads, but there is nothing that makes me write a negative review. If your readers understand that you're only giving recommendations for books you enjoyed, what's the harm? As an author, I don't believe being publicly critical of another's work is the way to help build your career.Considerations are different for bloggers who are not authors...

I once reviewed a book that had a lot of grammatical mistakes, and I mentioned this in the review. I was kind about it and said that they drew me out of the story. The author appreciated my honesty and said he had an editor now to go over the story. I don't criticise the author. Or call a book horrid. I point out the good things. If I can't find anything good, I just don't review it. I won't crush someone's desire to write.

I just don't review books I don't like. As an author, I'd never respond to a negative review. Everyone has a right to his/her own opinion. I hate to see people slam authors though. This is a tough industry and writing isn't easy. I would never slam someone, which is why I don't post reviews unless I really enjoyed the book.

If there's nothing constructive in the review, why pay attention? I've seen reviews that were obviously not about the book being discussed, and reviews that trashed the author personally rather than addressing what was right or wrong about the book.

Both are wrong. A critique or a review that slams the author or discusses everything that's wrong with the book without providing any kind of solution isn't worth the time it takes to read it.

I really don't see the problem with negative reviews. If books only had positive reviews, there would be absolutely no way to distinguish which books are worth reading--and that's the whole purpose of reviews, isn't it?

I think there is a fundamental difference between critique and criticism. Pointing out factual errors, grammar, convoluted plot lines, etc. provides necessary information to potential readers; trashing the entire book in one sentence (this was a piece of crap!) calling the author names or being sarcastic is just unprofessional and reflects badly on the reviewer. As far as content and style, there are plenty of good books which I simply don't care for, in which case I would just give a synopsis, a brief explanation of what put me off (I found the plot too complicated, the protagonist left me cold, there was too much description for my taste) and leave other readers to make their own decision.

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